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April Fools? Tricks not so funny

When we think of April Fools, we think of funny pranks and jokes played on our friends. This April Fool's day is another story. "Conficker C", a nasty computer worm, is said to have infected between 5 million and 10 million computers as of today! To put it simple, this is not your ordinary computer worm. As a result, we have seen many worried, microsoft offer a $250,00 reward to find the author, and top security software firms trying to prevent the worm from spreading.

"Conficker C" is a different type of worm because it has been proven by the authors of the worm that they are in complete control of it still, even when it is on other computers. This is scary because they are able to code the worm to do whatever they feel like, which they have said will be done April 1st, 2009. Whether it is just a prank, steals personal information, slows our computers, or erases hard-drives, we will have to wait and find out.

What you can do to surf safe:

Because Microsoft realizes the potential damage this worm could do, they have done what they can to help protect their users. Head over to http://onecare.live.com/site/en-us/default.htm and run a system scan. Also, ensure that you have all of the windows updates by going to http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com.

Also, you will want to make sure that your anti-virus is up and running and has the up-to-date virus definitions. It is a smart idea to run a complete system virus scan at least once a week.

Lastly, you should always avoid websites that you are not familiar with and that could be home to viruses, worms, and malware.

I will be posting an article tomorrow about how to effectively clean your computer of malware and others tips on how to get more speed out of your computer.


*** For More Recent Articles Pertaining to the Conficker C Worm:

Update: Conficker C Reveives Instructions
Conficker C a Fool? Wait and See